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Skip City Digital Festival Announces Lineup

Twelve features from Asia, Europe and the Middle East will compete for the grand prize in the fest held in July, north of Tokyo.

TOKYO – The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival announced the lineup on Thursday for its July 14-22 event in Kawaguchi, Saitama, located just north of Tokyo.

The 12 features for the main competition were selected from over 570 entries, according to Yuji Takizawa, director of the festival since it began in 2004.

The films include productions from Austria, China, three from Japan, Israel, the Philippines, Turkey and the U.K. They will compete for a grand prize of 1.5 million yen ($18,850), and best director, best screenplay and special jury prizes of 500,000 yen each. The jury will be headed up by Fuji TV producer Shinya Kawai.

“When young directors first started shooting on digital cameras, I wondered what they were doing. I couldn’t imagine that everyone would be using them one day and that it would enable everybody to make films,” said Kawai.

Skip City began life as one of the few festivals dedicated to digital cinema, but has shifted its emphasis to focus on arthouse films as the format became the industry standard.

A Skip City Award, for a Japanese feature, will give the director access to the studio and editing suite at the Sai-no-kuni Visual Plaza where the festival is held.

The festival was delayed until the autumn from its usual summer slot last year due to the March disasters.